My Father and Me: A Spy Story

Continued (page 3 of 5)

Harold "Jim" Nicholson, after his arrest in 1996

Michael Rochford, who spent a career at the FBI countering Russian espionage against the United States, says that what the Russians were trying to do with Nicholson was fairly routine. "I can parallel this to the way the U.S. government looked at the loss of our intelligence assets between 1985 and 1994 when our recruited agents in Russia [Russian spies working for the U.S.] were getting investigated, tried, and executed over there," Rochford told me. U.S. intelligence officials couldn't understand how those spies were getting caught. "What we did in the intel community between the FBI and the CIA was to try and get ahold of the families of the executed assets, or assets that were in prison but not executed. We would try to interview them at different locations around the world about the circumstances of their arrest."

Whatever the Russians may have learned from Nicholson's messages, there's no question in the minds of intelligence officials that his plot was driven not so much by money as by bitterness. "He wanted to show that the U.S. government couldn't control him in jail, that he was still valued by the SVR, that he could still hurt the U.S. in a vengeful way and get some capital out of it," Rochford told me. He looked into the distance, narrowed his eyes, and shook his head. "To use your son in that way is just unbelievable."

···

In December 2006, Nathan flew to Mexico City. It was his first opportunity to experience the international life of intrigue his father had always told him about. But as he walked out of the airport terminal, he was consumed with the task on hand.

As instructed, he took a cab from his hotel to the consulate, a white building with tall arches and columns, where he met his new handler, a graying Russian named Vasily Fedotov. Short and stocky, Fedotov had retired from the Soviet clandestine service in the '90s after a long career that included a short stint at the Soviet embassy in D.C. in 1986 as head of counterintelligence. But the SVR had activated him now to handle the Nicholsons.

Fedotov led Nathan to a room that appeared soundproof, where he sat down to study Nicholson's notes. Fedotov told Nathan to tell his father that he had received Nicholson's letters (What letters? Nathan thought), then asked the boy to convey a series of questions to his father. They were all related to Nicholson's capture. Who had interrogated him? When did he suspect he was under surveillance? Nathan jotted down the questions in a notebook. Fedotov watched him scribble, then made a suggestion. Better to use code, he said.

Nathan ignored the advice, writing "cause and effect" above the questions as a reminder that they were about the circumstances leading to his dad's arrest.

Fedotov asked Nathan about his cover for traveling to Mexico. When Nathan explained that he planned to say that he was interested in Mexico City's architecture, Fedotov suggested he pick up some brochures from the city's architecture school. Nathan nodded but had no intention of following through.

Fedotov handed Nathan a brown paper bag with $10,000, then looked at a calendar. He told Nathan to return to Mexico City for another meeting during his next break from college, in the summer of 2007. The transaction had been a breeze. Nathan had more money in his pocket than he knew what to do with. He could have blown some of it on a late night out in Mexico City. Maybe woo a girl like his father had. Instead, he spent his remaining days holed up in his hotel room, playing games on his PlayStation and listening to his iPod, venturing out once to buy a sombrero and other knickknacks for his cousin.

Nathan didn't truly enjoy his success until returning to Sheridan, where he basked in his father's praise. Nicholson told his son that he had outperformed even his trainees at the Farm. Nathan relayed Fedotov's questions, having copied them from the notebook onto his arm and hand. Over the next few weeks, Nicholson wrote down his answers on paper notes, detailing the circumstances of his 1996 arrest. He may have been followed from Malaysia to Singapore.... A contact he'd met with in Singapore may have been "tainted."... This person was "someone off the screen" and not a Russian intelligence officer....

Though he knew he shouldn't, Nathan read the messages. His father had provided specifics: the name of the polygraph examiner on his case, the existence of secret tunnels running between two countries. Suddenly this all felt very real. Just as Nathan was starting to worry, his father reached out. In letters from prison, he exhorted Nathan with praise, quoting lines from scripture: "Before you were born I set you apart and anointed you as my spokesman to the world." Unbeknownst to Nathan, he had become an animated character in a game whose controls lay in his father's hands.

···

The FBI won't disclose how it got tipped off to Nicholson and his son, but agents began investigating shortly after Nathan's second trip to Mexico. The investigation was led by FBI Portland's Jared Garth, a fast-talking native New Yorker who worked alongside special agents Scott Jensen and John Cooney. With court permission, the officials put Nathan under surveillance.

On December 5, 2007, the FBI installed an electronic tracker on Nathan's car. Three days later, when the agents got in to work, they discovered that the vehicle was parked at the Portland airport. Jensen described it as an "oh shit moment": Losing Nathan's trail—especially if he didn't plan on coming back to the U.S.—would be a blow to the investigation. Searching through phone records, agents found a call Nathan had made to his girlfriend at three in the morning, telling her good-bye from the airport. Jensen drove out to the airport with another agent, and the two went from one ticket counter to the next to find out Nathan's airline, eventually learning that he had taken a Continental flight bound for Lima, Peru, connecting through Houston.

While the FBI was playing catch-up, Nathan was in Lima, trading state secrets for $10,000. His father had sent him, along with the details of an escape plan he wanted Nathan to convey verbally. It involved landing a helicopter on FCI Sheridan's helipad, airlifting Nicholson out of the prison complex, and dropping him off the coast of Oregon, where a waiting submarine was to take him away. To ensure that he was correctly identified during this getaway, Nicholson had tattooed his blood type, "O+", on his arm. Fedotov laughed at the delusional proposal. If the Russians acted upon it, he remarked, it "could start a war."

Moreover, Fedotov was not happy that Nathan had failed to follow the instructions he'd given him in Mexico City. Nathan was supposed to have confirmed his plans for Lima by leaving a message in a Mexican account that Fedotov had set up. He never did. Fedotov told him not to make the same mistake before traveling for his next meeting, in Nicosia, Cyprus. He also gave Nathan instructions on a secret signal and pass phrase to use there.

When Nathan returned to the States, landing in Houston before his flight to Portland, Garth and Cooney were waiting. They had Customs and Border Protection agents pull Nathan out for a search, and from behind a one-way mirror they watched as his luggage was opened. "Nathan was stone-faced the whole time," Garth said. "At one point, I put on a CBP badge and pretend like I'm reviewing the search, pacing up and down the floor so that I'm able to overhear the conversation between the two inspectors and Nathan."

CBP agents found $7,013 in Nathan's belongings, $4,000 of it tucked into the inside cover of a PlayStation video-game case. When they asked why he had so much cash, Nathan answered that he had left the U.S. with some $9,000 in cash because he had "maxed out" his credit cards.

In Nathan's backpack, CBP officials found his notebook and, in his wallet, business cards covered in notes. While Nathan sat there seemingly unconcerned, one of the officials brought the notebook and the cards into the back room, where Garth and Cooney hurriedly photocopied them.

"The contents were pretty telling," Garth said. Scribbled on the pages were instructions on where and when Nathan was to go for the meetings in Lima and Cyprus. There were several sheets filled with questions that he was to convey to his father and instructions for him if he managed to get out of prison: "If Dad gets out, get passport ASAP. Travel to country nearby Russia. Up to him (Dad) (i.e. Finland).... Have him go to Visa section of Embassy (Friends)" The pages also listed the Yahoo account, Jonemurr2@yahoo.com.mx, that Nathan was to use to confirm the meeting in Cyprus.